A guy with kids in Victoria, BC.

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I am just going to state for the record here, that the truth is I know jack shit about the particulars of what’s happening with Jian Ghomeshi. Earlier, on Facebook, I posted “Hang in there, Jian”, but cripes, I have no idea whether he is worthy of my support or not, and as the day wanes on so does my support for Mr. Ghomeshi. I’m pretty sure my support doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, anyway. Either he’s the victim of an awful smear campaign, or he’s used his position of authority to commit violent sexual assault. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in-between. For now, I guess we just can’t know for certain. Maybe we never will.

I’ll tell you this though, I can’t get this whole Jian Ghomeshi thing out of my head, and I think it’s because after last week’s attacks on Ottawa, and after nearly a decade of a general feeling of disenfranchisement with our federal government, after going from a nation of “peacekeepers” to “peacemakers”, Jian getting canned from the CBC was the last thing any remaining sense of my Canadian identity needed. If this keeps up, I might have to start following hockey, and that’s never come easily to me.

I am reminded of a contest Peter Gzowski held a long time ago. Gzowski was another beloved Canadian radio host who formerly held Jian Ghomeshi’s time slot for many years. The object of the contest was to fill in the blank: “As Canadian as _____”, in an effort come up with a similar phrase to “As American as apple pie.”

In the end, the winner of the contest, hands down, was “As Canadian as possible under the circumstances”. For now, that’s the best description of how I feel about my country. Canada, I still stand on guard for thee, but it’s not as easy as I remember it used to be.

This is really the catalyst that made me start. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson states that we are predisposed to remember negative experiences, but by reflecting on the positive ones we can train our brain to burn in the pathways that are required to hang on to that positivity in a more habitual way, and make us happier. Well, I’d like to be happier, so here I am reflecting on positive experiences. I like putting it here on the internet because this way, I’m accountable, so I’m reflecting more as I write. It’s the internet, so it’s an indelible record – hopefully one day me, or someone who gives a cuss about me will find this and get a better understanding of who I am right now.

3) I’ve been thinking a lot about entitlement, and I think it’s not good for anybody. Further, I think gratitude is the antidote for entitlement.

In my efforts to raise kids and rase’em right, one can’t help but to reflect on how the behaviours I want to correct probably come from me. It’s hard to admit, but I think my through my background and experience I’ve developed a sense of entitlement. I’m a white male in a western democracy. That right there gives me all the privilege I need to feel like the world owes me something. Where’s my high paying 9 to 5 job? Where’s my new car? Why is this house a mess? I took the free ride from my family through university. I deserve what’s mine!

I think it’s hard to be around entitled people. Generally, they can be real jerks sometimes. Only recently have I begun to see my own entitlement for what it is. Turns out, the truth is that entitlement is painful for the entitled, too. That disappointment you feel about your station in life? Might be something else, but there’s a good chance that disappointment, right there, is entitlement.

Often, my kid exclaims “Where’s dessert?” or “This toy you just gave me isn’t the big blue Super Action Man one, I WANT THE BIG BLUE SUPER ACTION MAN ONE!!!”. While my knee-jerk reaction is to blame them for this outrageous behaviour, about 5 seconds reflection draws me to the inescapable conclusion that they are learning about what the world owes them from me. Also a key factor: they are learning how to respond to that notion by watching what I do as well.

Which is to say, if I am thinking there is something wrong with my kids’ behaviour, there’s probably something I should be looking at about my own behaviour. So in this instance, I say, CUSS YOU, ENTITLEMENT. Then, I try to have a little gratitude, and I try to do it every day on this blog.

ONE MORE THING

As I post all this gratitude stuff, I am aware of how posts all about how great life is can lead to unhappiness. And so, I’m writing this disclaimer: As I post about the things I am grateful for, I am editing out the stuff I am ABSOLUTELY NOT grateful for. The tone is always pretty cheerful in these posts, but the honest truth is that a significant amount of the time I am writing them, I am struggling to come up with one good thing to say about my day.

It’s worth the struggle though, because when I decide to look for it, I see that great things big and small happen to me all the time. The fact is, I’d probably miss those things if I didn’t bother to reflect on them.

Julie noticed the disparate and didactic related posts in an article in the Globe and Mail’s website. They angered this working Dad (even though Dads aren’t mentioned in any of the three articles), and inspired this blog post.

Here’s the article. It reveals to us that when people ask Tina Fey, a woman with a demanding career and kids “How do you juggle it all”, she finds it annoying.

Could having a mom who works outside the home have an effect on a child’s waistline? Maybe, according to a new study of 900 elementary school children from 10 cities across the United States.

And here’s an excerpt from the second:

According to a recent landmark study, there is almost no evidence that having a working mother in infancy adversely affects a baby’s long-term mental development or behaviour.

So what’s the message here? I see that the newspaper is just reporting on research and the musings of celebrities, doing exactly, what it is supposed to do. I think the message here is that other people have all kinds of opinion about how you should do things differently. Fair enough, I guess.

But you know what? Aside for an excuse to rant on my blog, the only real thing reading these articles gave me was anxiety. Parents might worry a little less about how they are too stressed all the time, about how to balance parenting and bill paying, and about keep children safe in a world that hates fat people if they just didn’t read content like this at all.

And you know what else? This is one of the many reasons why newspapers are dying. The media is changing, that’s part of it, but the real problem is people aren’t willing to pay for the content.

In this humble working Dad’s opinion, access to this tripe isn’t worth a dime, and certainly wasn’t worth the time I spent reading it.